The Sunset Hill House — Hotel in Sugar Hill

When I set out to visit Sunset Hill House, I didn’t expect the experience I had. From reading previous reviews and the property’s answer to those reviews, I know that this will only serve as that - a review - and that no action will be taken towards making up for a bad experience, except a few paragraphs will probably be written in response in order to justify their take on things. To save you some time and effort: Yes, the view is beautiful. And yes, the mountains are breathtaking. Yes, the Inn looks wonderful on the outside. But how long will you be able to hide behind that? You are a business, and you are charging people quite a bit for the view they can get just from walking outside. I dare say the rustic, old-school experience of being handed an actual key as opposed to a keycard gives you a very welcoming, warm feeling when you arrive. But after going up two sets of stairs that are stained and dirty and look like they haven’t been cleaned in years doesn’t feel very welcoming. The room was clean! And that’s the least a great hotel should offer. But this is NOT a great hotel. I thought it was, but it is not. I had no hot water in my room. The bathroom was small, and that’s okay, but the shower was weak and again, did not get hot (not even warm until 10 minutes later). I understand you are a historic site, but there are steps you can take to bring your hotel up to par that won’t mess with the integrity of the building. For example, you can purchase $30 shower heads on amazon that will give people a more decent water pressure. You can include conditioner along with the shampoo (what a crazy concept, right?). You can add a mini fridge in each room. And yes, I know you offer one in the lobby, but no, I don’t feel like going down two flights of stairs and back up those same stairs in my pajamas after having a snack in my room that I had to purchase at a local store because all the restaurants in town were either closed or too far. We arrived on a Tuesday and were told the restaurant would open the following night, which is exactly what was said in your website. That’s fine. But when we arrived, we had no idea the restaurant was closed to actual guests due to an event - a signing of some sort - and that we had to make reservations beforehand. Again, a heads up would have been nice. It was 6:40pm when we asked if we could dine in the hotel restaurant, only to be given the information I just mentioned, and the added info that we couldn’t even order take out (even though the restaurant’s outdated website asks people to order take out to support local restaurants… I guess they don’t need the support). I had to go out again to get myself some snacks, most of which I had no way of keeping overnight unless I hauled back down to the “community fridge”. And when I walked back in, the restaurant was empty at 7:15pm, even though they close at 8:00pm and had stated they had a full house due to the event. Don’t get the communication but okay, let’s keep going. Hey, here’s another simple thing you can do: update to smart TV’s! Welcome to 2023, where almost no one watches anything but Netflix or similar subscription services, which in any other hotel, even the simple Holiday Inn’s, offer on their TV’s for us to sign in during our stay (which is free for the hotel, all you have to do is upgrade your TV’s or buy cheap google chrome USB’s to add to the back of your current ones!). Also, buy some WD40 and spray the hinges on the doors, which are all very noisy. And no, the noisy doors don’t help sell the historic aspect of the inn. It only adds to our frustration. To say the least I am very disappointed, and I will not be staying at this hotel again. I don’t want any money back - especially since it seems I’m only paying for the view anyways. Please - do something! Honor the guests who pay a hefty amount per night to stay there. You can still keep the integrity of the historic inn and upgrade some of the features to make your guests feel more at home. I will always visit NH and always enjoy the majestic view of the mountains...

The 1 star is only for the cleanliness of the room and the views/ location of the hotel.

That’s pretty much where it all ended. This hotel can in no way claim a 4 star rating. Right from when we checked into the hotel we had problems!

We were initially given a ground floor room in the building adjacent to the main inn. We found lady bug infestation all over the first room that we stayed in. We found Over 10 in the room.

After much complaining we were shifted to another room upstairs and found the situation to be slight worse. We found lady bugs all over the bathroom and the jacuzzi. One of the staff that we called told us that they are harmless, there’s nothing that they can do about it and that they are expected around this time of the year.

There are definitely ways to keep the lasybugs out if the right resources are invested. One cannot brush aside concerns stating that they are normal and expected. If this were to happen at my home, I’d get it fumigated and sealed.

The manager was nice enough to shift us to a new room in the main inn room 204. I noticed that the windows in this inn were updated and had better sealing to keep the lady bugs out. We had no issues with ladybugs from then on.

But that’s when things went from bad to worse. The room was stuffy with no ventilation. The sound insulation is so poor, you can hear people walking all over, toilets being flushed, people in the neighboring rooms taking!

The insulation was so bad that we were woken up by the alarm in our neighboring room!!

Save your money. Go to a cheap standard motel like best...

We were more than disappointed in our experience here. We booked a Premium Sunset room, which lists "Gas fireplace / oversized jacuzzi tubs / balconies with private seating" among its amenities. When we got to our room, which was in Hill House, there was no jacuzzi nor fireplace to be found. When we complained to management, they explained that these rooms come with only one of these three amenities (because even though each amenity is listed side by side with slashes, as shown above, the room description refers to an "array" of these features). We ultimately felt that the wording on the website did not make this clear and we felt deceived. According to the staff member, we should have known to put our preference in the "Notes" section on the website, though it is not stated. There is no climate control in the room.The temperature in our room did not rise above 65 and when we awoke in the morning it was a balmy 61 degrees. When deciding to book a room at the Sunset Hill house we took not only the room amenities into account but also breakfast, however, we quickly found out that breakfast was an additional fee, despite what I had read online. Needless to say, we could have had a more filling breakfast for the amount we paid at any other location. The one thing the inn has going for it is the setting, which is positively stunning and perhaps the best panoramic view of the Whites to be found. Overall, we feel that better value can be found in the region and don't...